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Kelly Levin

Bio

Kelly Levin is a senior associate with WRI’s major emerging economies objective. She leads WRI’s Measurement and Performance Tracking Project, which builds capacity in developing countries to create and enhance systems that track emissions reductions associated with low-carbon development goals. She closely follows the negotiations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and analyzes related emissions reduction targets and actions. Kelly has conducted an annual review of climate change science for WRI since 2005. She was also the Research Director and lead author of the 2010-2011 World Resources Report, which was dedicated to climate change adaptation, and specifically to how governments can improve decision making in a changing climate.

Kelly pursued her doctoral work at Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where her research focused on adaptation policies to contend with climate impacts to biodiversity. During her PhD studies, she was also a writer for the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) Reporting Services, covering biodiversity and climate change meetings, including the UN climate change negotiations. Kelly has also worked as a climate policy/technical analyst at NESCAUM (Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management), where she devoted her time to developing a regional greenhouse gas registry in the Northeast and assisting states in the development of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

Kelly holds a PhD and Master of Environmental Management from Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and a B.A. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Yale College. She has been awarded the Google Climate Science Communication Fellowship and the Academic Council on the United Nations System Dissertation Award, and is a Switzer Fellow, Teresa Heinz Scholar, and Udall Scholar. Kelly’s publications can be found in Climate Policy, Global Environmental Politics, the Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research, International Forestry Review, Policy Sciences, among other journals.

Blog Posts

Most climate change solutions focus on on mitigation—ways to slash emissions as quickly as possible, such as by adopting renewable energy. But research shows these aren't enough. To prevent the worst impacts of climate change, the world will need to reach net-negative emissions, a point at which we're actually removing more carbon from the air than we're putting in.

Parts of the United States are experiencing blizzard and frigid temperatures, possibly spurred by climatic changes. It's reminiscent of the types of extreme conditions we witnessed over and over last year.

A new report by the Global Carbon Project and the University of East Anglia found 2017 had the highest levels of carbon pollution on record. Global carbon dioxide emissions from human activities and specifically from fossil fuels will reach record highs by the end of the year.

The annual Emissions Gap Report looks at the difference between the emissions reductions countries have promised and those needed to prevent the worst impacts of climate change. Bottom line? The gap is considerable.

A new U.S. government report confirms the well-established science behind climate change: it's real, it's human-caused, it's happening faster than predicted and it poses a tremendous threat to America and the rest of the world.

One ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement is for countries to peak emissions -- reach the point when global heat-trapping emissions switch from increasing to decreasing -- as soon as possible. A new WRI paper shows that 57 countries, representing 60 percent of all global emissions, are likely to peak emissions by 2030.

In the last weeks, we've seen deadly heat waves and wildfires in the U.S. West, massive floods in South Asia and the ravages of hurricanes in the Caribbean. What does science tell us about the links between these extreme weather events and a changing climate?

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has called for a "red team-blue team" exercise to challenge scientific consensus on climate change. This kind of exercise might work well to encourage new ideas, but it has no place in determining the science of a changing climate.

Thousands of people are expected to attend this weekend's People's Climate Movement march. It's a good moment to reflect on the facts—what we know about climate change today, and what impacts we can expect in the future.

Publications

Much has changed since countries first developed their NDCs. All Parties have the opportunity to communicate new or updated NDCs by 2020, informed by the outcomes of a facilitative dialogue in 2018, and incorporating advances in renewable energy, technology and policy developments in key sectors...

The Project for Advancing Climate Transparency (PACT) consortium works to support the design and development of robust and effective transparency and accountability rules and processes for the Paris Agreement on climate change. This working paper examines the five streams of information to be...

This paper assesses each of the world’s countries in terms of whether their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have peaked, when they have peaked, and whether they have a commitment that implies an emissions peak in the future. The paper finds that an encouraging trend is emerging: the number of...

When it comes to climate action, effective measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) of emissions and emissions reductions is critical to help countries understand GHG sources and trends, design mitigation strategies, enhance credibility and take other policy actions.

Advancing the Key Elements of the Paris Agreement

The Paris Agreement is a hugely significant step towards reaching a zero-carbon and resilient world. But challenges remain if we are to limit temperature rise and increase capacity to adapt to climate impacts. Those challenges include: the alignment of financial flows towards zero-carbon and...

The upcoming decisions at COP21 present an opportunity to put our global community on the right path, providing appropriate short-term signals for investors and innovators as well as a strong long-term signal that guides the phase out of greenhouse gas pollution. The private sector can play a...

Discussions are being initiated this month at the UNFCCC negotiating session in Bonn, Germany on the types of information that will be needed to understand the nationally determined contributions Parties put forward for the post-2020 period under the emerging 2015 Agreement.